By Sleep to End the Heartache
by JudyNFran
Summary: Bakura makes a wish that things were diffrent. His wish is granted.
1. Prologue

~Prologue~  
  
Pain.  
  
So much pain, radiating off my arm and filling my body with heavy fire. There was nothing but the pain; the world around me was a chaos I didn't recognise.  
  
"Where is this place? How did I get this wound?"  
  
No answers.  
  
But then a voice, calling my name.  
  
"Yuugi-kun...." and he was there opposite me, at the end of a dark tunnel.  
  
"It hurts, Yuugi-kun...." I repeated, begging him to make the pain stop, to explain what was happening.  
  
"Yuugi-kun...." One more time. Did I speak aloud? Why didn't he move?  
  
Fire again, a different one. Fire and steel entered me, sending me reeling back away from my eyes, the pain gone. The dark tunnel few until I saw nothing.  
  
There was words - Yuugi's voice - and then bright, blinding, lightning flamed pain.  
  
Why?  
  
Why did this happen?  
  
I wish it wasn't real... that it hadn't happened.  
  
I wish....  
Author's note: title paraphrased from act 3, scene 1 of Hamlet, the "to be or not to be" speech. I'd give lines but the online page I was looking at doesn't have line numbers. Stupid thing. 


	2. Chapter 1

~Chapter 1~  
  
The boy who stood in front of the room had silvery white hair, with just a tinge of violet from a dying experiment gone horribly wrong. The hair ascaded over his shoulders and almost halfway down his back, seemingly in defiance of the majority of boys in the room, whose hair barely reached the napes of their necks. His uniform several shades lighter than those of the other boys also.   
  
The boys were already looking at him with veiled hostility. The boy at the front of the room sighed slightly, warm chocolate eyes mirroring his resignation.  
  
It was the girls. It was always the girls. They were staring at him as though he were song pop idol. At least he knew they'd get over it. The girls where he grew up had gotten over it when they'd realized he was a boy.  
  
He bowed as the teacher wrote his name on the board. "Yoroshiku, onegai-shimasu! Bakura Ryou to moshimasu."  
  
There was a general murmur of reply.  
  
"Bakura-kun," the teacher said, "I'm afraid you'll have to sit with Jounouchi. There's no other free seat." He turned toward a blond boy, sprawled across two chairs. "Don't scare him away from the school," he said in a tight voice, eyes snapping anger.  
  
The blond snorted and sat up to give Bakura room.  
  
"Yoroshiku," the new boy said with a smile.  
  
He was greeted with a scowl from his deskmate and sighs of admiration from the girls around them.  
  
The lesson started. Bakura hurried to start his notes until he realized that this class was a bit behind the one he'd come from. Relaxing with a smile, he looked up to see what his classmates really looked like.  
  
He blinked, coming face to face with a rubberband, stretched across Jounouchi's thumb and forefinger and poised for snapping. He gave a bit of a gasp, startled at the thought that his deskmate might try and hit him with something.  
  
Jounouchi gave him a disgusted glance and leaned back around him to fire the rubberband at a brunette a few desks over.  
  
"Jounouchi-kun!" Bakura said in shocked dismay as the blond pulled out another rubberband.  
  
The teacher looked up from his lesson at the voice, then frowned at Jounouchi, ordering him out with a look.  
  
The blond smirked defiantly at the teacher as he rose. He kicked Bakura's chair as he passed it, hands in pockets, to leave the room. Moments later, a motion outside the building caught Bakura's eye through the window. His blond deskmate was giving him the finger.  
  
Seeing that he'd been noticed, Jounouchi tossed him a mocking salute and sauntered off the school's grounds.  
The rest of the day didn't go much better, as all the girls followed him around and the boys looked at him with jealous hatred. Bakura sighed as he packed his books up to go home. He felt eyes on him and looked up, smiling at the one boy who hadn't said an unkind word to him.  
  
Hadn't said any word to him at all, or to anyone else that he'd noticed.  
  
The small boy looked down, hiding his eyes behind blond bangs that didn't look any more natural than the maroon ends of his hair. Bakura wondered how he got it to stand up the way it did, knowing that Keiji back home-- he shook his head and mentally corrected himself-- back where he USED to live would be interested to know it.  
  
Recalling himself to the present, he smiled at the stranger again. "Yoroshiku ne," he greeted brightly.  
  
The boy looked like Bakura had hit him and hurried toward the door, leaving Bakura to blink after him in confusion.  
  
"Where do you think you're going, chibi?" a voice called after the small boy, making him cringe down in fear and causing Bakura to scowl.  
  
A brunette - the one that Jounouchi had shot the rubberband at - blocked off the boy's escape. Bakura recognized the boy as one who had glared at him as a pretty girl with long hair the colour Keiji had tried to dye his had fawned over him  
  
"Why don't you leave him alone," Bakura suggested, coming up behind the small boy and cutting off his further escape. "He hasn't done anything to you."  
  
"Think you're better than me?" the brunette asked, raising his fists.  
  
"If this is how you treat people younger than you, then yes," Bakura said firmly, meeting the other boy's eyes.  
  
The brunette collapsed laughing. "Hear that, chibi? He's only helping you because he thinks you're a kid. You can go home now. I don't think I can do anything worse to you."  
  
Bakura looked confusedly down at the smaller boy, seeing a blush of embarrassment and tears of mortification in the boy's eyes as he raced from the room.  
  
"Yuugi!" a dark haired girl shouted, chasing after him. She glared at the brunette who was still chuckling on the floor on her way out.  
  
"I think I like you better now," the brunette said. "But stay away from the girls."  
  
"What did I do?"  
  
"He's the same age we are," the other boy said with a smirk.  
  
"Sonna!" Bakura stared at the door wide-eyed. "I should apologize...."  
  
"To him?" the other boy snorted. "Don't bother." He pulled himself up off the floor and walked out.  
  
"Wait!" Bakura called. "I don't know anybody. Please...."  
  
"I'm not going to be your friend," the other boy said bluntly. "And you can forget about trying to be 'buddies' with Jounouchi. He's worse than I am."  
  
Bakura watched after him miserably. 


	3. Chapter 2

~Chapter 2~  
  
"~I~ hear that he keeps the dead body in his office to gloat over," the second familiar voice said in the gleeful tone of knowing that something probably isn't true.  
  
"I heard he killed him using the technology he'd created because he didn't think it was going to be used ruthlessly enough," the first voice rejoined.  
  
Taking a deep breath, Bakura walked over to join the conversation. "Who?" he asked.  
  
Jounouchi and his brunette friend Honda scowled at him. "Don't you have something else to do?" the blond demanded.  
  
"Go torment Yuugi some more," Honda chimed in. "We don't need you."  
  
Bakura sagged a moment, then lifted his head. "No. I want to know what you're talking about."  
  
The boys looked at him with almost grudging respect. "Kaiba Corp."  
  
"Because they said Kaiba-san killed his father to take over?" Bakura asked. "Have they freed the world leaders from his virtual reality yet?"  
  
"Who cares?" Jounouchi asked. "Not like most of them were doing any good anyway."  
  
"I mean, look at that American creep," Honda put in. "Kaiba can take over the world for all I care."  
  
'Take over the world?' asked something in Bakura that had been asleep. He blinked, informing himself that everyone knew about Alcatraz and the weapons stockpile, and the way that he had his subordinates killed after they helped him take over. 'But....'  
  
"Why are you here, anyway?" Jounouchi asked with grudging interest.  
  
"My father's bank transferred him here."  
  
"Your dad's a banker?" the blond asked with more interest.  
  
"The money belongs to the bank. Not to him," Bakura said in no uncertain terms. "He used to be an archeologist, but then when he got married.... And after... after the accident he didn't want to leave me alone."  
  
"That why your hair's that freak's colour?"  
  
"At least he doesn't look like a gaijin," Honda shot back at Jounouchi before Bakura could stand up for himself.  
  
The pale haired boy watched as they fought, thinking that they seemed less like friends than they should. He shook his head. It was just the way they were, and they probably weren't good friends for him, even if he felt that he wanted to be friends with them.  
  
The painfully shy Yuugi was dragged past by his only friend, Anzu.  
  
"Ohayou, Mutou-kun, Mazaki-san," Bakura called with a smile.  
  
While Yuugi smiled shily back as they walked by, Anzu turned her nose up at him. Even though two weeks had passed, she still hadn't forgiven him.  
  
Bakura sighed, no more sure why he wanted the friendship of the class scapegoat than why he wanted the friendship of the class' biggest delinquents, but he felt that he should be able to trust them. More than he could trust his old friends, apparently, as none of them had even tried to contact him.  
  
Bakura made his way home, lonely beyond reason and feeling that he shouldn't be, and wondering why the thought of the president of Kaiba Corp had brought images of playing fields and pretty cards. That the cold president would play anything as silly as card game was unthinkable.  
  
He spent the rest of the day as he had spent most days in the past two weeks: at home wondering why he felt like he was missing something, something like a warped iron core. 


	4. Chapter 3

~Chapter 3~  
  
"Jounouchi-kun! Leave Mutou-kun alone!" Bakura ordered, crossly.  
  
The blond looked at him, not putting the smaller boy's feet back on the floor. "Why should I? What are YOU going to do to me?" he sneered.  
  
"I'll tell Mazaki-san," Bakura threatened, pointing at the door to the classroom she was in.  
  
Jounouchi dropped Yuugi. "You're not worth it," he informed the small boy. "But someday she won't be around, and then you'll get it."  
  
Yuugi looked at him aprehensively, then ran away, giving Bakura a greatful look as he passed.  
  
"What's wrong with you today?" Bakura demanded of Jounouchi. "You attacked him!"  
  
"He got in my way," Jounouchi said with a shrug. "I don't have to answer to you."  
  
"He was across the room! Really, Jounouchi, you'd think you were better friends than that...!" He stopped, startled at his own words, and Jounouchi barked laughter.  
  
"I don't have 'friends,' Bakura. Certainly not Mutou. And not you." The blond pushed past.  
  
"I thought we got along...." Bakura said softly.  
  
Jounouchi didn't even answer, as he pushed his way into the classroom. Bakura followed unhappily, but close enough to hear Honda address his deskmate.  
  
"How'd it go?"  
  
"She'll be blind by next month and my mother never wants to see my sorry ass again," Jounouchi answered flatly. "Shut up."  
  
'But Shizuka shouldn't be blind!' something in Bakura's head protested. He shook his head, not sure why he thought he knew what Jounouchi was talking about. He sat in his seat, trying not to think of a girl with darker hair than his deskmate but the same smile.  
  
He focussed instead on the threatening looks that deskmate was giving Yuugi, kicking him a few times under the desk and shooting warning glances at Anzu.  
Anzu wasn't in school.  
  
His deskmate had noticed the fact and was signalling back and forth with Honda, probably planning something against the nervous looking Yuugi. He kept a close eye on the pair all day, but grew lax toward the end of the day when they didn't try anything.  
  
He wasn't sure what made him look up as he left the building, but what he saw caused him to dash back inside, pelting up the stairs to the roof.  
  
He gasped for breath as the pair stood over small Yuugi, the childish looking boy pressed against the rail of the roof but strangely seeming like he was trying to protect himself. Jounouchi picked him up by his shirt, holding him menacingly.  
  
"Jounouchi-kun stop it!" Bakura called with the first breath he could catch. "Yuugi-kun is your friend!"  
  
All three stared at him, Honda in shock, Jounouchi in revulsion, and Yuugi in a wide-eyed surprise that quickly gave way to a beatific smile.  
  
"Friend?" Jounouchi sneered. "I don't have friends." He dropped Yuugi carelessly.  
  
The boy pinwheeled for balance as he hit the rail, then silently, eyes widened in surprise, he fell.  
  
"Yuugi-kun!" Bakura shouted as the other two were rooted to the spot in shock. Time slowed. He reached instinctively for the power of the Ring, then remembered that it wasn't there.  
  
No Ring. No Puzzle. No stronger, more confident Yuugi-kun. No Duel Monsters.  
  
His father. His life.  
  
But not his friends. And now, with no way to reach him, no Yuugi-kun and no chance for his friends.  
  
"This isn't what I wanted!" he shrieked to the sky, eyes tearing. 


	5. Epilogue

~Epilogue~  
  
There was light; blinding bright.  
  
A ripping, tearing feeling of loss and I was behind my eyes again. And it hurt... oh, it hurt; fire in my veins, lead in my limbs, blood roaring through my head, making the dark tunnel red as I fell.  
  
My name, and there were arms around me - so gentle, so warm, so safe.  
  
Words, words, and more words. There were others there. Others holding me, carrying me as the red-tinged tunnel carried me away.  
  
And part of me the pain couldn't touch danced. Exulted that this was right, and this was real, and this was how it should be - how it was! is! will be!  
  
And I fell asleep against the warmth of a friend.  
  
--  
Note: This is the start of a series that has yet to be given a title. Check stories index for followups. 


End file.
